


Sudden Desire

by fruitzbat



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Historical Hetalia, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:42:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26236594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitzbat/pseuds/fruitzbat
Summary: We keep our distance now,I wanna feel his hands go downSpAus playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ge0aj8FXAju9tkNx358xa?si=Z3l6xrDcQwiOFbXzC_RLgA
Relationships: Austria/Spain (Hetalia)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Sudden Desire

**Author's Note:**

> CW for implied violence related to antisemitism at the end.

_I wanted him to kiss me how  
With open mouth and open mouth  
We keep our distance now  
I wanna feel his hands go down_

Roderich liked the way Antonio would grab his face when they kissed, hold him by the jaw with one hand like a fruit he only knew how to bruise. Roderich didn’t mind changing the way he dressed to hide the bite marks. He liked feeling wanted. He liked it when his husband came home smelling like sweat and grabbed him by the hips.

Antonio liked the way Roderich smelled in the mornings, how it lingered around him long after he had risen and ceased only after he’d had at least two cups of either coffee or black tea strong enough to merit his stained front teeth.

It was an arranged marriage, but it was one of the few Roderich actually had no problems with.

  
_I try not to think about  
What happened last night outside his house  
Too far to go back now  
Just wanna feel his hands go down_

The divorce was not one either wanted, but both agreed that it was necessary: when the money ran out, love wouldn’t pay the bills.

Roderich tried to not think too hard about it. He failed.

He then tried to convince himself that he deserved better. He failed again, mainly because he felt that no matter what bad things Antonio had done, Roderich had probably done things just as immoral.

He wrote more music. That only made it worse.

Antonio sat on the other side of the continent with his heart in his lap and his head full of a hot, wordless sorrow, muttering his lover’s name until it turned to ash in his mouth.

_Sudden, sudden desire  
Sudden, sudden desire  
A sudden desire_

It was true that his relationship with Erzsi softened the sting. It was true also that both knew that neither was a replacement for the other: both wanted to be someplace else, just a little, but were _comfortable._ That was all Roderich could really hope for at this point.

Roderich had never been with a woman before he’d been with Erzsi. Erzsi had never been with a man before Roderich. Afterwards, both went to separate sides of his home and had separate crises.

Antonio had never remarried. Roderich took note of the gossip about his love life out of the corner of his ears. He never solicited such things, but they always found their way back to him nevertheless.

Antonio watched Roderich similarly, scoffed at his engagement to the Hungarian girl – surely he was better looking, wealthier, a better match in every conceivable way – but he held his tongue.

_Take the elephant by the hand and hold it  
It's cruel to tame a thing that don't know its strength  
But better to walk beside it  
Mm, than underneath  
My kind companion  
Softens stone  
My gentle giant  
Painful reminder_

All these years and his first reaction to seeing Roderich in distress was still to reach out and touch his hand. Roderich opened his fingers, letting Antonio’s hand mesh with his. And so the two sat, Roderich denying the fact that he was ready to cry, with his fingers notched perfectly in Antonio’s.

_“Gatito,”_ Antonio began, once again forgetting himself. “It’s normal to hurt after a loss such as this.”

Roderich almost asked how Antonio could possibly know what it means to hurt like this, but then held his tongue. He did not want to know the answer.

_Don't look in my eyes, I feel a sudden desire (sudden, sudden desire)  
Don't know if I can deny a sudden desire (sudden, sudden desire)  
Your fingerprints on my skin, a painful reminder  
Don't look in my eyes, I feel a sudden desire (sudden, sudden desire)  
A sudden desire_

You could not get married and unmarried as many times as he had without feeling a little bit like a goldfish being passed around to different families, a different set of uninterested children who always either fed him too little or too much. He didn’t have much to offer except for his glowing personality and his status as a musical genius. It was hard being so… _gifted._

Roderich and all of his self-deprecation had found his way to Madrid. All the color left Antonio’s face when he opened his door and saw who was waiting for him.

“To what do I owe the visit?”

“Can we talk?”

Antonio ushered him in and turned his back; the planes of his shoulders made Roderich’s chest ache.

Much, much later, when Roderich was asleep and Antonio was very much awake, Antonio traced the shadow Roderich’s cheekbone made against his face.

_Won't fit in the room, big balloon  
Trails me 'cause I can't let go  
Everywhere I am, it sticks close like a friend  
Just like him  
Just like him_

“They’re saying I should marry Ludwig.”

“Are you going to?”

“Besides the fact that he’s too young for me and I’m on borrowed time enough as it is? I don’t think so. But I don’t think I have a choice.”

Roderich’s face rested in Antonio’s big hands, the two sitting across from the other on Roderich’s bed. Antonio had climbed through the window – a holdover from his more criminal days.

“Roderich, do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Then…maybe we should surrender. Run off and grow old.”

“We can’t vanish when it gets hard,” Roderich scoffed.

“No amount of loyalty will mean anything if you _die,_ ” Antonio responded.

“We all will die one way or another.”

“But I want you to die next to me.”

Roderich sat up to look at him. Closely. 

"I'll compromise. If things get truly out of control -- if neither of us has anywhere else to go -- I will meet you in Avignon." 

"That's a long way for either of us to come." 

"I assume you will be motivated, as will I." 

_Friendly reminder  
Of a sudden desire_

The letters started soon after. Even when he had to start running, Antonio somehow managed to continue writing him. They switched languages multiple times to keep anyone from knowing what was being said.

Antonio kept most of Roderich’s letters, tried to bind them together into a book to read when his heart was especially low.

Roderich knew how much Antonio was fond of Arabic love poetry, but had never imagined he would be the subject of it. Antonio exempted and folded a particular scrap of the Hebrew Roderich responded with and kept it in his pocketbook when he received it and did not have time to bind it in with the others.

In hindsight, writing back in Hebrew was a mistake.

_Don't look in my eyes, I feel a sudden desire (sudden, sudden desire)  
Don't know if I can deny a sudden desire (sudden, sudden desire)  
Your fingerprints on my skin, a painful reminder  
Don't look in my eyes, I feel a sudden desire (sudden, sudden desire)  
A sudden desire_

Roderich:

Madrid has fallen. Franco has won. I don’t know what to do. All I know is that I hope you’re safer than I am right now. Tall order. I’m trying to escape the city; I’m writing and walking at the same time. God willing, if I can get to you, maybe we can both get out.

If you get this, you know where to find me. More than anything, I want to find you well.

_I wanted him to kiss me how  
With open mouth, an open mouth  
We keep our distance now  
I wanna feel his hand go down  
I try not to think about  
What happened last night outside his house  
Too far to go back now  
Just wanna feel his hands go down_


End file.
